REPORT OF the; pre;sident, 1909. 33 



titativ investigations here as well as elsewhere in the advancing biological 

 sciences. 



The Director's work on the second and third volumes of "The Medusae 

 of the World" is also progressing favorably ; while the first volume, now in 

 press as publication No. 109, is well advanced. 



As already indicated in a preceding section of this report, the arduous 



enterprise of building, equipping and putting into activ operation an observa- 



, tory for determining positions of stars in the southern 



Meridian hemisphere has been successfully carried out during the 



Astrometry. year. This work has been accomplisht in the face of many 



difficulties, not the least of which has been the world advance in costs of 



commodities, construction, transportation, and living expenses. This advance 



has been from 20 to 50 per cent since the estimates for this project were 



drawn up five years ago. In spite of these difficulties, however, the definitiv 



program of measurements at the observatory was begun in April, 1909, and 



is now proceeding with unequald efficiency. 



Simultaneously also with the establishment of the observatory in Argen- 

 tina, work on the general project of the department, namely, the production 

 of a catalog giving precise positions of all stars from the brightest down to 

 those of the seventh magnitude inclusiv (about 25,000 in number), has been 

 continued at the Dudley Observatory. 



The Director's "Preliminary General Catalogue of 6188 Stars for the 

 Epoch 1900, including those Visible to the Naked Eye and Other Well Deter- 

 mined Stars," now in press, is nearly ready for issue as Publication No. 115 

 of the Institution. The demand for this catalog shows that it will take at 

 once a fundamental place as an authority in positional astronomy. 



At the beginning of the present calendar year the equipment of this novel 



establishment was so far advanced that work of experimentation was activly 



begun. The apparatus of the laboratory proves highly 



The Nutrition effectiv, and the experiments already made, on pathologi- 

 cal as well as normal subjects, fully justify the confident 

 expectations hitherto entertaind with respect to this line of research. For 

 necessarily technical details with regard to these experiments reference must 

 be made to the Director's report and to publications emanating from the 

 laboratory staff. 



Many additions have been made during the year to the equipment of the 

 laboratory. Among these are a bed-calorimeter into which a recumbent 

 patient may enter with ease and safety; a portable respiration apparatus 

 which may be applied readily to a patient reclining on a cot while his respira- 



3— YB 



